"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.

%/
2






"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
3



"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
4






"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
5

MEADE MEMORIAL SERVICES

AT THE

Academy of Music,

In Aid of the Meade Monument,

ON

SATURDAY EVENING, MAY 29th, 1880.


The officers of the meeting, orators and speakers, and invited guests,
assembled in the Green Room. The members of the Post, in full uniform,
formed on the stage, which was set in a wood scene, with camp in rear, tents
pitched, muskets stacked, drums, knapsacks and other paraphernalia of soldiers'
life scattered loosely around, while at the front of the stage seats were arranged
for officers, speakers and guests. Above the centre of the stage was suspended a
large oil painting of General Meade, life-size, kindly loaned by the Union
League, of Philadelphia, bearing the simple inscription, " Gettysburg."
At quarter past eight, the Ringgold Band, of Reading, Pa., struck up
the grand march ; the Post presented arms as the guests, headed by Hon.
HENRY M. HOYT, Governor of Pennsylvania, who had been selected as the
presiding officer, escorted by Comrade WILLIAM J. SIMPSON, chairman of the
Committee of Arrangements, followed by PRESIDENT HAYES, SECRETARY OF
WAR RAMSEY, ATTORNEY-GENERAL DEVENS, Generals SHERMAN. HANCOCK,
AUGER, POE, RUCKER, MACOMB, other Cabinet officers. Members of
Congress, Judges of the Courts, city officials, the VICE-PRESIDENTS of the
meeting selected from the prominent business men and citizens of Philadelphia,
and a number of promi- nent officers of the late war, entered at the upper end,
and passed down to the front and took seats assigned them, the audience
rising, waving their handkerchiefs, and loudly applauding, as the familiar faces
appeared. The Post was then dismissed, and took seats in the auditorium with
their families and friends.

Governor Hoyt introduced the orator, General JOSHUA L. CHAM-
BERLAIN, ex-Governor of Maine, who delivered the following oration :


"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
6

ORATION OF GOV. CHAMBERLAIN

COMRADES AND FRIENDS: There are many thoughts worthy to be
uttered at the close of a day like this. Some of them I venture to speak for you,
now that we have strewn the new flowers of spring over these sacred ashes, and
have gathered here, as the shades of evening thicken, that our souls may deepen
into thoughtful converse with the spirits that have passed before us, and touch
those chords that sweep the past and future into one harmony.
The roll-call shortens fast. The strife is long since over, but our list of
casualties is not yet complete. The wounds and weakening of the field are still
wearing many away before their time. The strain of that long struggle is fast
laying even our strongest low.
How fresh their graves, and how thick they lie ! It seems as if the
musketry and canister were cutting keen as ever. Honored and dear are they all,
they who fell beside us face to the foe, they who languished away in dreary
hospitals or in the torture of prisons, and they who sink down in the after
march of life. We close up our thinner ranks, holding nearer and dearer
together, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart.
Thought widens, too. To us who now so often cross in spirit the
broadening stream to hold converse with the great and noble who are gathering
so fast on the other side, thought enlarges as the years flow on. The past, so
crowded with stirring scenes and great events, narrows in the vista of our
backward look ; but the lives that offered themselves up stand before us even
grander than we knew them. New reasons, stronger justifications, wider ranges
of vision as life opens out and on, show us more and more the measure of the
great work done, the worth of the sacrifices outpoured, the high meaning and
reach of those toils and sufferings which have sometimes seemed almost
unavailing, and cheer us with glimpses of the immortal destinies into which
our poor work was builded.
Peace shows us not only what war costs, but what it is worth. Friends,
we are not here to weep over graves, to submit to death, to confess our human
weakness and deplore the waste of human worth. We are here to see the
triumph over death. The heavy stone set before the door of the sepulchre is
rolled away with outbursting life, which blesses the earth after it has ascended
into the skies. We are here to see and testify that human worth offered up with
pure motive and in a great cause cannot perish from the earth that life given
for the sake of others, lives on in others in an undying course.

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
7

Many a cause is deemed worthy the offering of life. Men go bravely to
death for honor's sake, for the faith of a plighted word, for obedience to law;
for virtue's sake, holding inviolate the sanctity of the body or the soul ; for
freedom and right, the nobility of life. Such things as these men hold dearer
than life, and the names of those who make this offering the world " will not
willingly let die."
But, comrades, it seems to me greatly to have distinguished and
ennobled the service to which we were called, that we were fighting for nothing
narrow, nothing personal ; not for private rights and privileges ; not for homes
and sanctities threatened by an invader ; not for civil rights, such as security,
property, freedom, and justice before the law. We were fighting on a wider
field than that, great as that has been in history. We were fighting for a
higher thought, a thought more distant, it is true, from individual interests,
but a thought God has planted deep in the hearts of men, and set in high and
awful sanctity over us, I mean the thought of Country.
The world knows us better now. Little shall we hear again of that false
taunt that we were a people who could not be moved except through our selfish
interests, that we were incapable of enthusiasm and devoid of the spirit of
chivalry.
No ! those who counted on that made a great mistake. There was no
taint of self in the spirit that stirred our people, not even of those highest and
dearest things of self which are called personal rights. A question was in issue
before which self was dumb and dead. It concerned a thought, an idea, or, I
might better say, an ideal, that political ideal which determines the character
of the American Union. The question was whether there was any such thing as
the People of the United States of America. Observe, the question was not of
the unqualified supremacy of the nation in all matters, but only in its own
sphere ; the question was not whether the national life was everything, but
whether it was anything; in short, whether we had a Country or not.
But we saw the Union scorned and defied, and taunts and jeers and
deadly missiles hurled at that ideal of the People of the United States which to
us was more than a name, but was a being, with a soul and a body, a life and
work and destiny, a moral personality and power on the earth under which our
highest worth and grandest work were to be achieved. And the duty came on
us to make that ideal real by a demonstration which no man could challenge
and no time efface.
We saw the old flag torn and trampled. We said we would raise it up
again, single and supreme. We took the high oath that those stars should not be

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
8

blotted out, nor dissevered and dispelled, that that pall of darkness should not
overspread the sky ; but that those lights should burn, on both ocean shores
and along the great gulf and the lakes. beacons by which the beating hearts
of humanity should be lighted and learn their way !
And then came such an outpouring as the world has scarcely seen
before. money cast into the treasury by millions, and. when all was
exhausted, men pledging their credit and their honor, and binding themselves
to taxation in a debt it would take whole generations to pay, thousands of
millions of dollars counted as dust and nothingness in comparison with that
great cause; hundreds of thousands of men the flower of our youth
renouncing their prospects and plans of life, without an instant's hesitation,
pouring forth to face toils and sufferings and deaths in the field, languishing in
hospitals, starving in prisons, dying by thousands and scores of thousands, and
still undaunted still pressing forward as to a festival; mothers sending their
first-born and their youngest; wives holding not back the fathers of their babes;
sisters and lovers loosening from their arms their life's hope and joy; and then
all following with loving care, with such comforts as soldiers may have, be it
but the scraped lint; and then the blessing, blessed hands could do no more,
lifted up to heaven in mute agony of prayer, not, oh. marvel of devotion :
not that they should be spared the cup of anguish, but that the Country might
live one and free !
Yes, all that costly sacrifice of toil and treasure, of brave men's blood
and women's tears, rose in one great offering and prayer, like a cloud of
incense, to the feet of God !
And the offering was accepted, the prayer was heard ; counted worthy
to have part in that great purpose and plan whereby this world shall be
redeemed from evil, and God's will be done and kingdom come on earth ;
accepted, the costly sacrifice, because we were, and were to be, a people and a
power on the earth, with a work to do for man. I said it was a thought. It was
a high and a great thought: Our Country, our whole Country our Country
first and forever!
The eminence of this idea of country appears especially in three
striking ways :
First. The supreme love for it set in the hearts of men.
Second. The supreme law of its sovereignty over men.
Third. The supreme sacrifice which it is the duty of men to make in
its behalf.

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
9

We may well turn our thoughts towards these themes upon an
occasion like this, when the question so naturally arises, Why have these men
died ? and what is the use of it, after all ?
It must be for some very high and useful end that this sentiment of
country is set so strong in the hearts of men as to overmaster all individual
personal satisfactions, the enjoyment of which is commonly thought to be the
chief thing which makes life worth living. There is something strange in seeing
men declare that governments are instituted to secure certain inalienable rights,
such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which means, I suppose,
the free enjoyment of their powers and possessions, and then at the same
moment and without hesitation, in that very cause, lay down forever that life
and liberty and happiness, and sacrifice to the uttermost all that man holds dear
on earth.
There is surely something here which takes hold on greater things than
individual rights and personal enjoyments. What is country to us if it bids us
sacrifice all that we have and are, and annihilate ourselves on earth? What is
that mysterious spell before which even life and love must lie dumb upon the
altar ?
What can it be but that the nation, the people organized as soul and
body, is a phase of the life of each member, a sphere in which his forces, his
capacities, his worth, find their highest expression. Man realizes his best only
through such membership. Each nation grows up around certain animating
principles and leading ideas, and takes upon itself the moral responsibility of
developing these ideas and making them actual in human life ; hence each has
its creed, its faith, its calling, its destiny. This leads to nobler living and larger
achievement, to a more thorough realization of human capability and worth,
than would be possible to men acting merely as individual units.
The body politic gives each man his best advantage by recognizing all
special excellences and organizing all differences in one complex and powerful
whole, all forces, aptitudes, talents, tastes and aspirations harmonized in one
great moral accord and ideal aim. God has made the thought and sentiment of
country sacred, because under it alone man can realize what is noblest in
himself and likest to the divine.
Nor can true freedom be found in solitude and isolation, nor even in
voluntary conventional associations. It can come only by the mutual action and
reaction, the reciprocal contact and support, of dissimilar parts harmonized to a
common end. Lawlessness and license are not freedom. Obedience and
equipoise are necessary that action may be truly free, that a power may work

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
:

without working ill to itself or anything else. The body politic only, animated
by great moral principles, and regulated by laws the expression of its conscience
as well as its will, is ordained to make such freedom possible, and hence to
bring out the highest worth of man. The tendency to such association is the
working of an instinct of man's nature, and hence of a divine law.
Other human associations have their divinely appointed place, the
family, the social circle, the neighborhood, the municipality, the church. These
are all instruments of man's enfranchisement and advance, and as such have
their rights and powers and sanctities. In this country, too, the States hold a
peculiar place. The sovereignty of the people is divided in its exercise between
the State as an organized political body, and the Nation as an organized
political body. The Constitution of the United States imposes certain trusts and
certain restrictions upon each of these. With respect to some subjects it is the
Nation which exercises unqualified and absolute sovereignty throughout all the
States; and in respect to other subjects, the States have an unqualified and
supreme power within their respective limits. But when the broadest interests
are concerned, when the great questions concerning man's widest relations and
highest dignity are in issue, the name of Country is supreme above all other
names. This is the highest unit, the most comprehensive form of organized
human power. It is the largest association of men for widest human ends, and is
thus the highest instrument for human welfare.
A nation is not a mere voluntary society for certain definite and
enumerated ends. It is the whole organized physical and moral force of a
people, by which they seek to realize their cherished ideas, to bring out human
worth, and give it guarantees in laws and institutions, to carry forward most
effectively the whole great work of humanity. Hence it is, I believe, that
Country holds that high sovereignty over us ; because of its appointed place
and power in bringing about the ends of history, that man may be brought
into harmony with himself and to that obedience which is the perfectness and
freedom of all his powers. To this great end it is a consecrated minister, acting
under a divine commission, entrusted with the high powers and awful
sanctities which belong to supreme sovereignty. It knows no higher law but
righteousness, and no master but God.
Corresponding to this right of sovereignty there is the duty of sacrifice.
It needed the office of priest as well as king to lead God's ancient people from
the condition of bondage to that of a nation. Perpetual offerings had to be
made in expiation of human error and human guilt. Sacrifice as well as
command was necessary in order to make a people free and to keep them one.

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
2;

It is necessary still. Human society is not organized in the interests of absolute
individualism, or individual absolutism. The nature of the body politic cannot
be comprehended without the element of self-surrender. Indeed, the very spirit
of political society is mutuality. It does not make freedom of trade its highest
maxim, but freedom of life, freedom to do the best thing, as well as to sell at
the best advantage. And to that end it must often set aside those teachings of
so-called political economy which make intense selfishness the guide of life,
getting the most by giving the least; renouncing all care or responsibility of
man for man which binds man to man putting men apart from each other,
and thus sundering what God has put together.
True politics recognizes no such economics as that. The word is,
indeed, much abused. It does not mean the arts and tricks by which the people
are deceived. It does not even mean the art of government as the restraint of
freedom by arbitrary power. Even government does not mean the rule of
power, it means the organization of forces. Politics means the art of living
together, justly and nobly. It is the art of being a people, for the high ends of
the peoples being. It is to promote the nobility of life and the mastery of man
over nature, over evil, over self. The spirit of sacrifice and self-surrender is
therefore essential to the idea of citizenship. This service and sacrifice are
demanded, and this high sovereignty exercised by reason of the very nature of
society and the necessities of its organization. The individual is called upon to
make this contribution because he is a member of that society, one of the
constituent elements of it, and its welfare is one of the proper objects of his
labor and his life.
I am well aware that in the works on public law and in the strictly legal
theories of the State, the high exercise of sovereignty is treated as in conflict
with private rights, and so there is a theory at least that compensation is made
for the injury so inflicted.
Private property is taken for public uses, even against the will of the
owner. The two forms under which this is done are the right of Taxation and
the right of Eminent Domain.
Taxation attempts to proceed upon a uniform and equitable plan by
which each individual property-holder is made to contribute according to what
is said to be his ability to pay ; but the theory is that he receives a full
compensation in the protection and freedom he enjoys under the government.
It would be bold, perhaps, to question the soundness of this reasoning as a basis
for the right of taxation, much as one might be tempted to do so were this the

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
22

place for such a discussion. I only refer now to the point that compensation is
said to be and believed to be given.
What is taken from individuals under the right of eminent domain, is
some private possession which has become peculiarly desirable or necessary to
the interests of the people at large. Here there can be, of course, no uniform
rule or general apportionment, and the individual owner receives a
compensation of a definite pecuniary value. It is not a sale where he is free to fix
his price, but indemnification for injury determined by some legal umpire.
Then again, where the service of individuals is taken without consent
(as by draft for the army or navy), there is a certain compensation, in the form
of payment. In all these acts there is an assumed right to take and to give
without other limit than what the Government or the people deems proper.
But it is one thing to give up a portion of your property or your
service, and quite another thing to give your life. How can even Country ask
men to do that? How can it compensate a dead man? May Government justly
be scrupulous in small things and reckless in the great? These questions bring to
the test the grounds on which the State makes demands on its citizens, and
compels us to look to some other principle than individual advantage as a
foundation for public law and sovereign rights. The truth is, the theory of
compensation given by Government for all it takes from the citizen, is inade-
quate as an explanation, and impossible in the nature of the case. Government
takes what it did not give and cannot restore. It takes unequally, and in a way
which neither law nor equity can reach.
There is absolutely no way of explaining this matter from the point of
view of self-interest. It is possible to explain it only on the principle of
membership, of sacrifice and self-surrender, and leave the justification of it, if
need be, as a mystery not solvable by man. Self-devotion for the sake of
Country can be conceived only in the light of that revelation of human
brotherhood, that spirit of membership and participation of great human life,
wherein one no longer measures his duty by the protection or advantage the
Government affords to him, but rather by his own ability to contribute. Some
are strong and some are weak, some rich and some poor, some wise and some
simple, but all are bound to put their best possible into the great common life
and well-being of which they are constituent parts. As to compensations, it
cannot be pretended that there are many, or even any, which have what can be
called exchangeable value among men. Something there may be of satisfaction
in the consciousness of duty done ; but the chief of them must be found in

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
23

that divine order of society whereby one cannot live to himself, and he who
loses his life for life's true sake shall find it again unto life eternal.
It is not claimed here that all who render great service or make the
supreme sacrifice, act from this high motive and look to these transcendent
rewards. Nor is it said that all who serve their country are equally meritorious,
and those who die for it are necessarily saints.
I am not discussing the relative merits of the citizens who serve their
country. I am seeking a reason for this paramount demand of government upon
the citizen, and his corresponding duty to yield to it.
It will not do, indeed, to leave men to be actuated by such
considerations alone as those which have been set forth. For not all can enter
into this high conception of the place and service of man toward man, none
but those to whom it is given to see the divine order of society, and the
consecrated offices to which each may be called by virtue of his membership
thereof. So it is needful for governments to act upon a practical rule that shall
come as near the moral one as possible, and compel men to do what is their
duty, if they do not willingly accept it, and offer by a legal fiction such
compensations and rewards as may seem least unjust. The laws of the State
must in some things be shaped by its necessities, leaving the full determination
of right and justice to Him who alone is able to judge and to execute in truth.
But merely legal ideas can never solve the social problem. They can
take but little cognizance of the complex relations in the membership of the
great political society which we call country, where one main factor is the
necessity of sacrifice, and the true and normal motive the spirit of good-will to
others.
On what other principle, indeed, can you justify this high-handed
demand of government upon the individual ? Any other theory, it seems to me,
would make such acts the brutal despotism of society, the flames of Moloch
and the wheels of Juggernaut. Shall outrage be done to the few, that the many
may be happy ?
Might not the question rather be, alas ! Shall outrage be done to the
many that the few may be happy ? To my mind, I confess, this problem of
society and the individual member cannot be explained without reference to
some better adjustments than we can make here, some conscious part which
each soul may sometime be brought to see, and share in the completed toils
and offerings of all.
Let it not be thought cant or "preaching" if this view of the
incompleteness of earthly life and the inadequacy of its judgments and awards

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
24

makes it necessary for us to take into account another and immortal life of
which this is still a part.
This very feeling we have to hold dear and fast the memory of noble
deeds, goes to prove the same thing. The flowers we scatter, the monuments
we raise, our praises of the dead, and our tears for them, are no compensation
to them. If it is permitted them to take note of our memorial services, they
cannot look through these earthly confusions and see as yet the settled end. Still
less can we allow ourselves to believe that such things are done merely as a
lesson and incitement for coming generations, that they too may be induced to
devote themselves to the service of country. There is no such bargain of gain or
selfish advantage when we make our offerings to those who perished in a great
cause.
It is the outgoing of an instinct as normal and real as any craving of our
nature not to let go the noble lives that have gone before us, and for our sakes,
to hold fast to them because they were one with us, and shall be again ! All
we enjoy to-day of peace and freedom and scope of life is greatly due to brave
and loving deeds done long ago. And what we likewise do shall live in others,
and perchance not be lost in us. Many a mysterious hint is given in all Gods
revelations of truth that somehow, by and by, the souls that have made sacrifice
for others' good shall enter into the consciousness of the victory won, that in
some way, by some lofty metempsychosis, the life surrendered here for others'
weal shall reappear in the soul whence it set forth, enlarged with all the noble
attributes its toil and suffering had helped to realize in this earthly sphere, and
to find its crowning joy of life, not in the supreme satisfaction of self, but in
being a part of something greater than self.
To that thought, it seems to me, all these memorials, these flowers,
statues and heartfelt tributes tend. This view makes them not less, but more.
Many a touching tablet in old cathedrals like that which the roseate Alps look
down upon in Berne, many a statue of world- wide fame and emblem of
undying majestic devotion like that of Thorwaldsen's Lion of Lucern, testify
that the chords of life are many and reach far, and that men should live all for
each and each for all.
Friends and citizens of this grand old State I pardon me if thoughts I
can neither repress nor utter sweep me at their control, and leave me neither
master of them nor of myself.
Before me this vast assembly of loyal spirits swayed by one thought;
around me this most imposing concourse of the highest and noblest in the
land; the President of the United States, that sole representative of all the

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
25

People, holding the high place which Washington and Lincoln held, and in
character worthy to be their peer; every branch of the Government
represented, the Cabinet, the Court, Senators and Representatives in Congress;
Governors of States ; officers of the army and navy, among them the General-
in-Chief, and by his side that honored son of your own State, the senior
Major-General, - these veterans of every rank and grade, but all one in spirit,
one in service, one in the power of a common citizenship. And others too, I see,
but not with bodily eyes, an invisible but glorious throng, those twelve
regiments of yours which at one time and another I was honored to have
represented in my command ; they too who have passed that supreme test of
loyal devotion, those true-hearted young officers bearing names familiar as
household words among you, who fell by my side on many a field where the
day was saved because they had chosen that darkness should fall on their eyes
and on yours forever here rather than on their country's honor; and those
others, nameless hosts, but not nameless on the book of God's
remembrance, sons of yours, brothers of mine, for if not of one blood by
birth, does not the mingled blood, outflowing in one stream, make us brothers
too?
Forms and voices throng around ; lingering memories and living
thoughts blend in one maze that baffles speech. I see the mighty vision, I hear
the vast accord ; but the tongue cannot grasp and utter all it tells.
I take up this tablet
*
on the page you have given me here. Heroic
names ! glorious forms !
Kearney The gallant, the chivalrous too early made immortal.
Reno Fearless fighting up the mountain side, whence God took
him.
Reynolds Able, enthusiastic, magnanimous, willing to serve where
he was worthy to command, falling in the midst of an heroic service which was
also high command, holding the enemy in check by his resolute spirit, while
his ebbing life-blood glorified the sod of the State where he had his birth.
Sedgwick Dear John Sedgwick ; lifted high above all thought of self,
and so lifted higher.
Mc Pherson Large of brain and pure of soul, seeing things to their
reasons and results ; who fell commanding, and who lives in our hearts,
commanding still.

<
See page 3

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
26

Heintzelman True soldier, readier at deeds than at words, ever
faithful, earnest for the right ; who had promised to be here with us to-night,
and who is here.
Custer Central figure of the fight, brilliant as a streaming banner,
sharp as the sabre's edge.
Hooker Soldier and gentleman, gallant and brave, experiencing
varied fortunes, but whose fame is steadfast and above the clouds.
Thomas The man of mighty mould, firm as a rock, in character and
combat ; immovable when he resolved to stand, irresistible when he moved.
Farragut The great-hearted and sincere : dauntless hero, passing
through deaths untouched, and, having now passed on, untouched by death.
Meade How shall I speak of him, and what need I indeed ? Has not
the distinguished head of the department of justice in the Government done
our hero justice? and has not the illustrious soldier, the general of the army,
paid him this very morning a generous soldier's tribute? Thoughtful, prudent,
sagacious, conscientious, able to carry his point with vigor, and capacious to
comprehend and direct great operations. Who of us Fifth Corps men can forget
that morning on the hurried march which led up to Gettysburg, and in
momentary expectation of the great battle, when Meade was suddenly
summoned from the head of the corps to the head of the army ? Without time
to change anything to suit his own ideas, or even to organize a staff, forced to
take things as they were, and as best he could to meet the expectations of the
country in the great issue then trembling in the balance; how quietly, how
modestly, yet how calmly and with what self-possession he assumed that
delicate and difficult, nay that tremendous trust !
What followed on that field of Gettysburg is known to us, known
to history and to fame.
Let us by fitting memorials perpetuate the cognizance among men of
characters like these. Let us hold fast by fitting symbols and by the likeness of
remembered forms, those whose conspicuous career makes them worthy to
represent the heroic virtues of all the soldiers of the Republic. Let us cherish
still with loyal love those who have nobly passed away, and the things for which
they died. And as we turn to part once more, let us highly resolve that from
thoughts and memories like these our lives shall grow more noble, and that in
the times to come we will hold ourselves loyal to our history, true to our ideals,
and worthy of our dead.



"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
27

At the close of this oration the long and continued applause testified that the
sentiments contained therein found ready response in the hearts of his
audience. As soon as the applause had subsided, Commander A. J. Sellers
stepped to the front and asked permission to interrupt the regular programme
to perform a pleasant duty required of him, and addressing General
Chamberlain said :

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I crave your
indulgence while I trespass upon your time for a few moments, in the
performance of a duty assigned me by direction of the organization of which I
have the honor to be a member. From time immemorial, upon occasions of
ceremony, and even at other times, decorations, emblems, and devices have
been worn by associations of men ; by individuals from the most exalted in
station to the humblest sphere in life; and what does this all signify ? Country
and State have conferred upon subject and citizen badges of honor for
meritorious services, colleges and institutes, for triumphs achieved by their
students. Individual representatives of organizations of every character, proudly
display upon their person the evidence of their membership. But there is a
badge of honor whose luster is greater than all, and more to be desired than the
decoration of any other nation, which, when worn upon the breast of a
comrade entitled to wear it, speaks to all the world that he has served his
country during its terrible struggle for unity and honor. It is the badge of the
Grand Army of the Republic ! whose cardinal principles are Fraternity,
Charity, and Loyalty. That Fraternity which cements us together in one
common brotherhood, whose ties were welded together in the fire of battle;
that Charity which prompts us to the noblest sacrifices for the needy and
destitute wards of our nation ; that Loyalty which binds us to a faithful
performance of our duties as citizens, that practical loyalty, which grasps a
rifle when the country's flag is assailed, and flies to the defense of the Union.
The symbol of our order we cherish, because it is the emblem of our Grand
Union, which epitomizes the patriotism of all those who fought, thought,
prayed, and died for our country in her hour of need, because it is the
mouthpiece of a fraternity of loyal hearts, an eternal monitor to all men that
loyalty still lives, the pearl of great price to the eyes of the widow and the
orphan whom it shields with its mantle of charity, and finally, the talisman
of an eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty.
And now (turning to the orator of the evening), Comrade Cham-
berlain, the pleasing duty devolves upon me of presenting to you your

"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
28

certificate of election as an honorary member of George G. Meade Post No. I,
Department of Pennsylvania, and of presenting to you, in their name, the
distinctive badge of their organization. Though of little intrinsic value, accept
it, comrade, as a slight evidence of our regard and esteem for your kindness and
the sacrifices you have made in coming so far to do honor to the memory of
our dead heroes, prominent among whom is Pennsylvania's distinguished
soldier Major-General George G. Meade, the Hero of Gettysburg, after whom
our organization is named. We are deeply sensible of the preference you have
given this city, this audience, and this Post, when pressed by so many
invitations from other localities to do reverence to Memorial Day, which
honor, sir, is gratefully appreciated (handing General Chamberlain his
notification of election, and pinning upon the lapel of his coat the gold badge
of the Post).



"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
29



"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
2:



"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
3;



"""#$%&'()*)"+,-.,.')/0,+*)1-#.%/
32